[TUHS] Re: [TUHS]: C dialects (was: I can't drive 55: "GOTO considered harmful" 55th anniversary)

On 3/13/23, Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote: I agree. Every language has toxic features--things that seemed like good ideas at the time but turn out to have been mistakes when they're better understood. Every good programming shop has its rules concerning certain language features or practices that are not allowed in the code, usually for safety or maintainability reasons. Dropping toxic features from a language does happen at standards committees, but it's rare. The best case I know of where this happened was when the international standard for PL/I came out. They started with IBM PL/I but then dropped a bunch of features that were either obsolete (e.g., sterling pictures) or downright dangerous (e.g., the DEFAULT statement). On the other side of the spectrum you have the BASIC standards committee. BASIC has always had to live down a reputation that it's a "toy language" not suitable for "serious programming". The standards committee seems to have suffered from an inferiority complex, and it seemed from my perspective that as fast as the PL/I committee chucked out toxic language, the BASIC committee adopted them. The result is a bloated, grotesque monstrosity that little resembles the simple, clean Dartmouth BASIC 6 that was the first programming language I learned (from the DTSS TEACH command). -Paul W.